Marketing Flexibility Interaction Matrix and Consumer Clusters Preference Criteria in Telecommunication Sector

摘要

The sequence of various events in Indian Telecom Sector has transformed the industry to become more competitive and dynamic in nature. With increasing competitive levels, the industry calls for more customer centric operations and flexible processes. The emphasis has been laid out in identifying various marketing functions and their use of various flexibility connotations in practise. The interaction matrix between marketing elements and flexibility connotations was developed through Delphi technique, which revealed connotations such as adaptive-ness, customization and localness are mostly adopted for making the marketing processes flexible and customer-oriented. The analysis of various' customer preference factors with clustering technique revealed a solution of four cluster groups where the customer preferences differ on various parameters. The clustering technique points out that customer prefers the best network quality provider with better customer service and plethora of Value added services. Cluster analysis also revealed that celebrity endorsements and the advertisements are not the motivating factors for selecting the operator and they are used only as top of the mind recall. The use of flexibility concepts in various marketing activities such as branding, point of purchase, product innovations, product differentiation, product planning and development, pricing strategies and loyalty programs would help the telecom organizations to better manage their subscribers in these cluster groups.